Daily Life in Cambodia – Page 101 – Welcome to Cambodia, and…..

We Grow ’em Big Here

The tropics are great incubators for big bugs and we have our share of big cockroaches. We have so many of them that the locals just take them for granted and don’t even react to them. They are very active at night and on any trip down to the kitchen after dark, they will be in full control–running all over the kitchen counter (where this one is) and going in and out under the backdoor. And then on any given morning 3-5 of them could be lying on their backs dead or moribund in the kitchen, another 2-3 in the breakfast area, another few in the living room, etc. They are just a fact of life. I was really surprised yesterday because I was in a parking lot and one big roach started sauntering across and a Cambodian man stepped on it! Usually it’s only the foreigners who freak out at them.

Rainy Day Scenes

It rains almost every afternoon now in the Cambodian rainy season and there was a light rain this evening as I came back across town after a wedding rehearsal. Here is how some people coped with the wet:

If you’re on the back of a motorcycle and don’t have your own raincoat, your line of sight is rather severely restricted. Most people, like this young woman under the driver’s poncho, prefer to be dry than to see where they are going.

As the rain lessened, though, she peeked out from under the poncho.

A less common sight on rainy days is someone driving with an umbrella. You really need to drive slowly to keep it in your hand.

Nobody Else Is Using the Wires!

This is a combination shop you wouldn’t see much in the US. On the left is a small eatery, selling pre-cooked foods selected by the customer from large pots hopefully covered with lids to keep out the dust. Muslim customers (this is near a Muslin neighborhood) can eat with no qualms because the sign assures all the food is halal. On the right, in the contraption on wheels made from chicken wire and shelves, the proprietors are selling all sorts of metal hand tools and utensils–machetes, axes, shovels, hoes, scythes, etc. To protect their merchandise and their customers, they are hanging a tarpaulin to block the sun and rain. They are tieing it to the telephone lines, probably figuring it won’t bother anyone–and probably figuring that half of them are non-functioning anyway.

Fresh from the Oven

When I was a kid, the Tastee Bread company trucks—emblazoned with the slogan “Baked while you sleep”—rumbled around early-morning Louisville delivering bread to the grocery stores. This woman’s bread is also probably baked while everyone is sleeping, but she doesn’t have any truck with a logo and has to be content with singing out “Num bung,” the Khmer word for bread, to alert her customers.

And Then There’s Coconuts

Different fruits can mark the change of seasons in Cambodia but not coconuts. They’re available all year round and just about everywhere. There are cheap, nutritious, and delicious so they are a favorite with much of the population. Here are three coconut vendors along Street 63 in Phnom Penh.

From the vendors’ point of view, the downside of coconuts is that they are big, heavy, and bulky and you can’t stack them like you can cases of beer. The white coconuts have had the green outer hull cut off, mainly for a better-looking product although cutting off the hull also helps the coconuts to chill faster when you throw them into the ubiquitous orange coolers.

Now It’s Pineapples….

Quite a few fruits are in season now. Today I saw pineapples being sold on the streets. Vendors like these tend to stay on the outskirts of the city, probably because it’s closer to home in the rural areas and probably because the police hassle them less there for bribes.

This man has diversified a little. In addition to the pineapples, he is selling giant snails in the tubs on the ground.

Topics: Oranges 2

It’s not just the oranges that are in season now. Pomelos are also plentiful and they are one of my favorite fruits.

This woman has two platforms, enough for a good-sized business, but no oranges. She may be waiting for a delivery or she may have used up all she had since she has orange juice for sale.

These women are selling both oranges and pomelos (on the left).

This stand had some oranges (see the juice on top of the cooler) but now all they are selling are a smaller variety of pomelos, a grapefruit-like fruit that is sweeter than a grapefruit and that has sections that can be eaten by hand, without a spoon.

Topics: Oranges

I have mentioned before that one of the ways to tell the seasons here is to note which fruits are being offered on the street. That’s one of the only real indicators since it’s always hot and everything is always blooming. Now it’s the turn of the oranges to appear. Most of them are from Battambang, renowned for oranges, and they are all green in color, not orange. They are good, though, and once in season, many vendors are selling the oranges by the kilo (about $1.75) or as bottles of freshly squeezed orange juice.

This young man is squeezing orange juice right on the street.

Selling oranges is not difficult. All that is needed is the small platform, six or eight inches off the ground, that is widely used. And then if you are selling orange juice, too, you need the squeezer and the cooler to keep the juice cold.

This woman has already been hard at work and has her orange juice out on display.

This man has lots of oranges and lots of empty bottles piled up behind him, and probably the family is inside squeezing the juice.

Going Fast

This is an old traditional wooden house a block from the Maryknoll office where I live. There aren’t many of these left in the city where they have been replaced by concrete dwellings or even by multi-story apartments and office buildings.

Choose by Size, Not by Style

When you buy your shoes on the street like this, you choose by size, not by style. For any given style, there may be only two or three sizes offered–maybe only one, so you try on the different styles that fit and then pick the pair that you like best. These places do a lot of business.